How much time do you spend maintaining your home?

Newlywed, new mom and first-time home buyer, Sarah is currently playing out her exciting life in Phoenix, Arizona. She recently gave up her job in finance to stay at home with her baby girl, who between bath time and feeding time, keeps ...

Home maintenance stats

Do you spend barely any time at all, or is maintaining your home the equivalent of a full-time job? Here, real people share just how much time they spend maintaining their homes weekly.

I'm a work-from-home mom of one (and one on the way), and I've noticed the more time I spend at home, the more time I spend cleaning and organizing it. Before staying home, I spent five hours per week maintaining it. This consisted of three hours of cleaning on Saturday and two hours throughout the week on dishes, laundry and general straightening up (back then, cooking wasn't on the top of my priority list). Now, I spend a minimum of 20 hours per week. Let's take a look at how much time others spend on their home — including cooking, cleaning, preparing meals, decorating, organizing and running errands.

"40 minutes per week…"

You read that right. Carol Paul, author of The Team Clean, spends just 40 minutes per week on home maintenance. Married with four kids, they all spend one night per week on different chores — including washing all the sheets and towels, vacuuming and cleaning all the floors, cleaning the bathrooms, tidying the kids' rooms, disinfecting the kitchen and more! Afterwards, they spend time bonding as a family and eating dinner. This system has worked for them for more than 13 years and has alleviated the stress that comes with keeping up a home.

"20 hours per week…"

A married working mother of two kids under the age of 10 spends 20 hours per week maintaining her home. She spends seven hours cooking (breakfast and dinner), four hours cleaning (deep cleaning on weekends and tidying up on weeknights), three hours running errands (grocery shopping, pharmacy, etc.), one hour decorating, one hour organizing and four hours on laundry. Based on our results, this tends to be the average across the board.

"10 hours per week…"

David Bakke, a single father and editor at Money Crashers Personal Finance, spends three hours cleaning each week, five hours cooking and two hours running errands (mostly grocery shopping). His home is fully decorated, so no time goes into that, but he does spend a few minutes watering houseplants each week.

"I do six loads of laundry each week; dishes, cooking and cleaning every day; and shopping twice per month. On average, I would say I spend 20 hours plus per week on all this!" — Angel, working mom of two

"I tidy up the kitchen every day after work, clean dishes/bottles, organize our home and take out the garbage every few days. On weekends, I deep-clean the kitchen and bathrooms, do two to three loads of laundry and go grocery shopping. I also cook at least five nights per week. I'm pretty quick, so I would say this adds up to about 10-15 hours of my time each week." — Amber, working mom of one

"I spend one to two hours per day cooking, two to three hours per week grocery shopping and meal planning, an hour per week on laundry, two hours per week on cleaning the floors, two hours per week on general cleaning, 30 minutes per day on dishes and 30 minutes per day tidying up and organizing. This totals slightly more than 20 hours per week." — Chrisanne, working mom of one

"I spend 40+ hours, no joke. Interior design is my passion, so having a clean, well-organized, well-decorated home is an extremely high priority of mine. I meal plan weekly, deep clean as often as possible and cook nightly." — Rachel, stay-at-home mom of two

Readers:

We'd love to know — how much time do you spend per week maintaining your home? Share with us in the comments below!